


Beauty

by TheVineSpeaketh



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Introspection, M/M, One-Sided Enjolras/Grantaire, Self-Esteem Issues, Short One Shot, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 13:10:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4061227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVineSpeaketh/pseuds/TheVineSpeaketh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Grantaire took comfort in the fact that he was not beautiful."</p><p>In which Grantaire sits in the corner of the cafe and thinks about beauty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beauty

**Author's Note:**

> Plot bunnies get infinitely more aggressive the further after midnight it is. Have you noticed? They're like Gremlins.

Grantaire took comfort in the fact that he was not beautiful.

He was a train wreck of a human being, a thing with skin stretched over its bones and muscles that played at being a man. His hair was knotted, his knuckles dusted with scars, his liver swimming and his stomach empty. His heart stretched and shrank and his mind stayed completely still where it sat. His mouth spun words as empty as he was, his hands creating things that reflected the beauty of the world around him—nothing that resided inside his own head.

He wouldn’t have dealings with beauty if he could. It wasn’t his realm, so why would he pretend he could dance in it when his place was a safe distance away? Alas, he was not so lucky—or perhaps he was. His whole life was made of beauty; that couldn’t be avoided when it came to the people he surrounded himself with.

He could look around the room and take in the faces he loved so much—the faces of Les Amis—and find something beautiful in each one of them. He did so often, in fact, when meetings were over and his head was mulled by drink, his tongue heavy at the bottom of his mouth and his eyes bright. When everyone had relegated to their non-business selves, the brief bout of socialization when work was done, that was when Grantaire could find the beauty in each of them.

His eyes first strayed to those closest to his heart: to Joly and Bossuet, to Bahorel and Éponine.

His eyes lingered always on the jet black of Joly’s hair, how it hung limply over his ears, how his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the flat and wide stretch of his nose and now it wrinkled when he snorted in laughter. His dexterous hands, which tended wounds and wrote out papers and held Bossuet with such tender care, as if he would break, would dance across the table as he said something. And Bossuet—

Bossuet would be overcome with laughter, throwing his head back and exposing the dark column of his throat. His head was bald, perfect for Grantaire to press his fingers onto, massaging out his migraines and keeping his hands from cramping. His smile was bright, his laugh music all on its own. His happy disposition was more than enough to keep Grantaire going, and that in itself was beautiful.

Bahorel was built with pure muscle and the safety of being caged in his arms was only matched by the safety of simply being near him. He exuded comfort and protection in waves, his aura of paternal sheltering was only matched by his unerring friendliness. His laugh was boisterous and full of glorious joy; if there was anyone who was filled with a raucous kind of _joie de vivre_ among their numbers, it was Bahorel, bringing fists just as quickly as he’d bring teasing words to any confrontation.

Éponine was built of a stern kind of beauty that did not yield for anyone, and was deeply underappreciated. Maybe that’s why it was so pure, so unfiltered, so _raw_. Her ability to stand in the face of any explosive catastrophe was her defining feature; the dark curl of her dark hair against her cheek, the heart shape of her face, the olive pigment of her skin, were all there, but seemed to blend into her spirit, rendering her larger than any existing concept. She was a boggling kind of beauty, that was for certain.

From there, Grantaire’s eyes struck the rest of their group—Jehan, with his ginger braid running down his shoulder and chest, his unerring ability to be himself; Feuilly, with his quiet strength and humility mixed with his unending loyalty, topped by a smattering of freckles; Marius, with his ridiculous and untamable hair, his bright eyes and easy smile and optimism; Cosette, whose beauty was so radiant from within and without that she slotted among them so perfectly, accepting and true to her very center; Combeferre, with his knowledgeable mind who had no problems admitting when he was wrong, who cared beneath the façade of coldness put on only to protect his friends; Courfeyrac, whose beauty mirrored Cosette’s in its ability to draw someone in, to make them at home at once; and Enjolras—

Grantaire looked back at his bottle, not allowing himself to look any further. Beauty was a fickle thing, a worldly influence that wasn’t meant for all people. He took a drink, focusing on the knots in the wood of the table. Beauty was something that acted more important than it actually was; beauty was no indicator of perfection, of the unattainable or the righteous.

Beauty was paradoxical, and ostentatious; it was recognizable in any setting, a veritable elephant in the room. It acted as a good camouflage not to have any beauty. For the less beautiful something was, the less attention it got; the less attention it got, the less recognition it was saddled with; the less recognition it was saddled with, the more it could fade into background noise.

Yes. It was for the best that the system worked that way, he told himself. Some people didn’t deserve to be heard. Some people deserved to have their voices erased from the narrative at the end of the day. Better him than somebody else more deserving of the time.

He sat at his back table, leaning his head back and closing his eyes, bringing his bottle to his lips and humming idly under his breath, tapping the fingers of his free hand on the table and fading away, a figure plastered against the wall like a shadow. He let his mind run in circles, a recording on loop, repeating his mantra to himself over and over again until he could sink into the nonsense without fear of wandering too far into unwelcome territory.

He sat in that corner and took comfort in the fact that he was not beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> Can you feel the elements of Tim Minchin's "Beauty" in here? I was listening to it and for some reason it made me think of Grantaire--I feel like Grantaire would probably muse on beauty the way Tim does in that song. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading this!
> 
> Come visit me on [tumblr!](http://exacteyewriting.tumblr.com)


End file.
